The Truth

Aug 21, 2014

Here’s the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth…

TRUTH: I am overly concerned with capturing moments for posterity. It’s probably an illness.

TRUTH: In my ruthless pursuit of this goal, I can be extremely annoying and unkind to the people I love the most in the world.

TRUTH: I wanted to have a “First Day of School” photo for 2014.

TRUTH: As usual, we were running behind. (As I was driving my daughter to school post-photo, I said, “We wouldn’t want to set their expectations too high by actually being on time on the first day of school, right?” She concurred out of politeness).

TRUTH: Even though we were running late, I was going to have my photo, come hell or high water.

TRUTH: Hell and high water came…in the form of an unhinged lunatic wielding a grin-enforcing camera like a cudgel.

TAKE 1

TAKE 2

TRUTH: I made my daughter change her skirt for the photo, thereby delaying our departure for school even further.

TRUTH: I made my oldest son “put on a nice shirt” for the sake of the photo. He gamely put on a hot, itchy flannel shirt in the middle of steamy August to please his crazy mother.

TRUTH: I made my younger son, who wanted to get himself packed and ready to go, extremely anxious by forcing him to pose for a photo…”SMILE! Come on, SMILE! NO, try to look natural. Pretend you’re happy!”

TRUTH: The photo IS the truth. My son is about to lose it.

TRUTH: I was so dissatisfied with my annual “Back to School” photo that I seriously considered forcing the children to do another fake first day of school photo session.

So help me, God. I obviously need it!

Weekend Snapshots 15

Aug 18, 2014

Summer is winding down. The kids start school this week. Our last summer weekend was all about hellos and goodbyes.

We were glad to welcome our fourteen-year old son back after he spent a whole week away in Vermont.

We squeezed in visits with old friends:

Photo courtesy of my fellow snap-happy pal, Rosita

Thanks, Rosita!

Summer isn’t complete without a visit with my friendy Wendy. I feel lucky to still have a friend of my youth as a friend of my adulthood.

Brunch at Bizou on the Downtown Mall

We went to a BBQ in Free Union to bid a fond farewell to another friend, who is off on a new adventure on the other side of the world. We had fun discovering a new part of the world in our own backyard:

Love this chicken coop in Free Union!

Chickens!

We revisited favorite places:

and had one last visit to Chiles Peach Orchard:

“Oh to take what we love inside, to carry within us an orchard…”

“the round jubilance of a peach”

“From laden boughs…”

We appreciated the last flowers of the season:

and even the delicate beauty of our eight-legged friends:

Goodbye, summer.

Hello, fall…

Weekend Snapshots 14

Aug 4, 2014

This weekend we celebrated my daughter’s 9th birthday.

She started the day off by opening some gifts and cards:

Hello Dali

We went to the Albemarle County Fair, where we admired these sleeping beauties:

Sleeping beauties

The birthday girl wanted Pad Thai and a Shirley Temple for dinner:

We went home to have her favorite, specially-commissioned Red Velvet Cake:

and to shower our favorite girl in the whole wide world with some birthday love:

Magic

Jul 30, 2014

For years my husband has been entertaining the kids with a magic trick involving two toothpicks. He makes one of the toothpicks jump up and even flip in the air, seemingly with the power of his mind. For as long as he’s been performing the trick, my sons have been begging him to teach them the secret. They finally figured it out for themselves and watching them learn how to do it was…magical.

My husband likes to refer to what I call “concentration tongue” as “genetic garbage”:

Not quite getting it…

Can you see what I mean in this next photograph?

Nope, still not getting it.

“I think I almost have it…”

This next picture had me laughing out loud…

“I think I got it…”

No caption needed!

“My turn!”

“Watch me one more time…”

This one made me laugh out loud too…

VICTORY

Watching the British Open

Jul 29, 2014

I always wondered why golf was televised. Who in the world could possibly find it interesting to watch? Now I know…

My One and Only

Jul 24, 2014

Happy birthday to my one and only…

Then

Now

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo, and then some.

Weekend Snapshots 12

Jul 21, 2014

Six summers ago we moved to Carrboro, a great little town right next to Chapel Hill.

We lived in this house for a year while my husband did a sabbatical at the Humanities Center.

The two boys were in third and first grade here:

My daughter and I did our own “home preschool,” just the two of us.

We spent a happy year exploring the area and making new friends. This weekend we went back to attend the 25th wedding anniversary party of two of these friends. It was lovely to meet up with old friends and to revisit some of our old haunts. More on this later this week. For now, just a few snapshots from the weekend…

Friday

Dinner at Southpoint Mall, Durham

Saturday

North Carolina Botanical Garden, Chapel Hill

Ultimate on the campus of UNC

Bolin Creek, Carrboro

Snipes Farm Retreat

Sunday

Watching the British Open before check out

Elmo’s, Carr Mill in Carrboro

Museum of Life and Science, Durham

Wheat Belly Weekend, Pt. 1

Jun 13, 2014

Reposted…

I drove up to Arlington last Thursday to pick up my sister for our Wheat Belly Weekend in New York City. There were alarming reports of tornadoes all the way there, but we would not, could not be deterred from our sisters’ weekend! Together, we drove on chatting and chortling for five hours straight. We cackled so hard we had to suck on cough drops to soothe our sore throats. (I’ll be writing about some of those funny stories soon)! Finally, we reached my second sister’s house in New Jersey, where we would spend the night.

I got to briefly hang out with my adorable niece and nephews:

It’s taken me many years, but I finally figured out how to get kids to pose for a picture…

Let them do this first:

Get it out of your system, boys!

I experimented a little with my brand new macro lens, a Canon EF 100 mm f/2.8L IS USM. I have no idea what I’m doing…

…but I’m having fun figuring it out!

We took the train to Penn Station from my sister’s house the next morning. As we made our way out of the station we were hit with the best smell of all:

“Mmmmmm….I smell carbs!”

We walked a couple blocks to Koreatown:

We stopped at Kangsuh for lunch, where I had my favorite Korean comfort food dduk gook:

After lunch, we went to get our hair done at Hydy Hair Salon on the second floor of this building. It was like a Korean version of the “Barbershop”/”Beauty Shop” movies! I got tsk tsked for the gross mismanagement of my hair by Hydy herself. She valiantly tried to set me straight, but in the end kept lifting locks of my hair with an air of dissatisfaction and saying, “I tried my best!” Which is exactly what you want to hear after a hair appointment.

We stayed in Koreatown for dinner. I was lured over to a restaurant across the street by their poster advertising Dduk boki. Dduk boki is typical Korean street vendor food that looks like this:

Carbalicious!

It’s got dense, chewy rice sticks that look like halved cheese sticks swimming in a red-hot and spicy sauce made out of fermented chili pepper paste. It’s hard to tell in the picture, but our “small portions” were actually enormous! By the time we left, there was a line out the door

Back at the hotel we collapsed in a carb-induced stupor…perfect for watching a movie in bed!

View from our window

Tomorrow: Wheat Belly Weekend, Pt. 2

Wheat Belly Sisters

FOMO

May 13, 2014

I suffer from a particular brand of FOMO. For me, it’s more like FOMOOPO…fear of missing out on a photo opportunity.

I left straight from work late Friday afternoon for a fun long weekend in New York City with a friend…It’s been crazy busy at home and work and I was looking forward to getting away to one of my favorite places in the world with a friend I haven’t been able to spend much time with lately. The only problem was that I was going to miss out on taking photos of my son dressed up for his first formal dinner dance. As I left for work Friday morning, I said my good-byes and extracted promises from my husband to take lots of photos. From my son I extracted promises to pose nicely for them. If you’re wondering why I’d have to get these assurances, let me present into evidence this:

*sigh*

You’ll notice that this is a pretty old photo…This kind of nonsense has been going on for years.

“Please pose nicely! Do it as a Mother’s Day present for me!” I cajoled. I shamelessly laid it on with a trowel.

It worked!

Here are a couple photos my husband texted to me:

Picking out a tie.

Check out the size 11 1/2 puppy feet!

Pictures from the Wedding

Apr 23, 2014

Here’s what happens when you have a sister who is super stylish and works in the hippest hotel in DC:

1) She scopes out the coolest places in LA to stay and visit during your weekend there. (See yesterday’s post)!

2) You show up at her house with your suitcase packed with an outfit you think is suitable for the wedding you’ll be going to with her. She makes you show her what you brought. She takes one look and shakes her head. She pulls out a much better dress, shoes, jewelry, and a bag from her own closet for you to wear.

3) She tries to help you out by taking a photo of you from a flattering angle…(from waaaaaaaay above)!

That’s me, my mama, and Sister #2

And here we are, my beloved sisters and me.

4) Your pot roast shaped feet overflow right out of your sister’s sleek shoes. In the end, unable to bear the crippling, excruciating pain, you take them off and end up walking around the country club with your fat, unshod, blistered, bright red feet. Because you’re just as effortlessly classy as your sister is stylish.